Abandonment; or, Absolute Surrender to Divine Providence · 17 of 35
Book Second, Chapter VII. The Divine Action, the Will of God, is as unworthily treated and disregarded in its Daily Manifestation by many Christians as was Jesus in the Flesh by the Jews.
What infidelity we find in the world! How unworthily men think of God! They criticise His divine action as they would not dare to criticise the work of the humblest artisan. They would force Him to act within the narrow limits of their weak reason and follow its rules. They pretend to reform all things. They unceasingly complain and murmur.
They are shocked at the treatment Jesus received at the hands of the Jews. Ah! Divine Love! Adorable Will! Infallible Action! How do they look upon Thee? Can the divine will err? Can anything it sends be amiss? But I have this to do; I need such a thing; I have been deprived of the necessary means; that man thwarts me in such good works; is not this most unreasonable?—this sickness overtakes me when I absolutely need my health. No, dear souls, the will of God is all that is absolutely necessary to you, therefore you do not need what He withholds from you—you lack nothing. If you could read aright these things which you call accidents, disappointments, misfortunes, contradictions, which you find unreasonable, untimely, you would blush with confusion; you would regard your murmurs as blasphemies: but you do not reflect that all these things are simply the will of God. This adorable will is blasphemed by His dear children who fail to recognize it.
When Thou wert upon earth, O my Jesus! the Jews treated Thee as a sorcerer, called Thee a Samaritan; and now that Thou livest in all ages, how do we regard Thy adorable will forever worthy of praise and blessing? 96 Has there been a moment from the creation to this present one in which we live, and will there be one to the last day, in which the holy Name of God is not worthy of praise?—that Name which fills all time, and all the events of time; that Name which renders all things salutary!
What! Can that which is called the will of God work me harm? Shall I fear, shall I fly from the will of God? Ah! where shall I go to find something more profitable if I fear the divine action and resist the effect of the divine will?
How faithfully we should listen to the words which are each moment uttered in the depths of our hearts! If our senses, our reason, hear not, penetrate not the truth and wisdom of these words, is it not because of their incapacity to divine eternal truths? Should I be surprised that a mystery disconcerts reason? God speaks; it is a mystery; therefore it is death to the senses and reason, for it is the nature of mysteries to immolate to themselves sense and reason. Through faith mystery becomes the life of the heart, to all else it is contradiction. The divine action killeth while it quickeneth; the more we feel death the firmer our faith that it will give life; the more obscure the mystery, the more light it contains. Hence it is that the simple soul finds nothing more divine than that which is least so externally. The life of faith wholly consists in this constant struggle against the senses.